[Qualitative research and evidence-based medicine].

Qualitative research originates from anthropology and social medicine, it has been introduced into medical field only for ten odd years. As medicine owns social humanity characteristics, its research method should not be limited to the traditional quantitative research for cause-effect relationship, and the advantages of qualitative research is just that it focuses on those unexplained and unanswerable questions by quantitative research. This essay introduces the basic concept of qualitative research, its relationship with evidence-based medicine and applicable scope, and also the necessity and importance of its application in traditional Chinese medicine.